cheech

...and speaking of movies that I like, I was pleased to read that Joseph Heller was indeed happy with the version of Catch 22 that Mike Nichols made. (For any of you out there that have read but not seen the movie, there are some instances where characters are compounded or are gone altogether, such as Hungry Joe and his cat nightmares.) Jospeh writes in an essay (in Catch As Catch Can):

What I liked most about the script was the structure and intention. It indicated effort to include very tough scenes from the book, scenes that I myself would have eliminated automatically if I had been doing the screenplay. If I'd been doing it, in fact, I think I would have made it into the type of movie I detest, because that would have been the easiest and safest way. It would have had lots of sex in it and lots of wisecracking, and it would have been very funny. The script I read did have a lot of that in it, but it also had very difficult and very strong and sobering scenes...

...They finally all went off to make the movie in Mexico. I had a kind of lukewarm invitation to come down but I didn't go because it wasn't Acapulco. Instead they were in some godawful place none of them could stand from the day they got there. People started going crazy almost at once...Bob Newhart went crazy one time or at least pretended to-- nobody is absolutely certain which...somebody finally rushed over to give him an injection to make him happy again. Another reason I didn't go down there is that I'd been on a set where a movie was being made, and I knew that if a person isn't working he might just as well be on a torture rack, dying of boredom. Consider what happened to Jack Gilford. He started a scene, but for some reason they stopped and Nichols said, "Okay, we'll finish in a day or two." Seven weeks went by, and then Gilford mailed a letter to Nichols from the movie set. It began, "Dear Mr Nichols: You are making a movie in Mexico. I am in Mexico not making a movie. I have some acting experience and if you have a spot for me, perhaps to finish a single scene, I'd be happy to work for you." The next day Nichols got Gilford and they did finish the scene.... Nichols is a perfectionist. I have a feeling he makes a movie pretty much the same way I write a novel. I might write one page four or five times and then decide the first way was best...At the end almost everybody in the movie was unhappy with his role, which seems to me a tribute to Nichols. It's an indication he wouldn't let any actor take over the picture, or even a scene...
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[then Heller n family go to a premiere]
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I found it stunning, surprising, and overpowering and when it was over I took Mike by the arm and said, "As far as I'm concerned it may be one fo the best movies I've ever seen." I meant it and he knew it and we were very pleased with each other...my wife and daughter and I found it a very grim and powerful and very engrossing and very disturbing movie. If a certain objective had to be striven for, I was pleased that it was a grim one, a melancholy one.
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and I am glad too. And so I will eat n work n see you later...